I can't take many more nights like this one.
We haven't lost early in the tourney as much as say, Georgetown (who suffered a #2-#15 upset tonight) or Wisconsin (who busted my brackets by losing today as well). But sometimes it does feel as if there's some kind of curse that dooms Kansas to horrendously poor outside shooting in the Big Dance. This was the first time we blanked from 3-point land since Feb. 2008... which I suppose could be a good omen?
At least we won by one more point than Gonzaga did, right?
Some things to be proud of: Jeff Withey, who carried over his tournament dominance from last year with 17 points and 7 blocks, and was our only consistently good player. Also, we were great from the free throw line all game long, which is impressive given the psychological pressure we faced.
But, and it pains me to sound like a broken record, our guard play was mediocre-to-bad all night long. If we can't handle full-court pressure better than this, particularly EJ and Ben, we are going down in flames sometime in the next few rounds. (I don't know if Carolina can really pressure us, but if we do turn the ball over against them like we did tonight they will capitalize much better than the Hilltoppers did, and we will lose. And for now, let's not even discuss VCU.)
Elijah still appears to be reverting to his February tailspin. Maybe playing UNC will shake him out of it. Oh, well. One game at a time.
I suppose you could say it's better to play like that in the first game... maybe now it's out of our system?
ReplyDeleteThe 3's are weird. We only attempted 6, you know? So add in like 2 more tries that go in and it starts sounding reasonable pretty quickly (easier said than done of course, but still).
Oh, and judging by the halftime score this morning, we may never have to discuss VCU...
Good point about the 3's. The one good thing I can say about our guards (aside from Releford's defense) is that we stuck with our game plan of relentlessly feeding the post. We didn't settle for a lot of 3s and we took even fewer long 2's, I think.
ReplyDeleteVery entertaining game between Michigan and VCU. Either team would be a big challenge for us, but I do think Michigan is better equipped to handle VCU than we are, so I hope they hold on.
And they do. So now we can start prematurely worrying about Michigan and wishing it was VCU instead. I suppose we do have another game before that, though.
ReplyDeleteHope the wide-open Roy style helps our players loosen up and have some fun. They've got talent, but I think if they decide to go ahead and run, we will out-pace them in the end.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, looking good, Colorado State!
ReplyDeleteUh, scratch that.
DeleteOK, how about the SHOCKERS!
ReplyDeleteSee, "my" Badgers would have had a clear path to the Final Four if they could have just contained Eminem. And this adds insult to injury for K-State as well.
Or in the phrase that took over my Facebook feed yesterday, way to go SHOCK!
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, what is happening in this Iowa State game? My goodness.